"The other interesting sight at Monday’s lengthy (nearly 2 1/2-hour, including film session) practice was Andy Rautins running the blue “first team” at the point."

Where have you gone Nate Robinson?

Really seemed comfortable out there whether it was running in transition and then pulling back to hit an open jumper or whether it was running a beautiful pick and roll with Ewing Jr. that led to an alley-oop jam. He is showing signs of becoming a good role player on this squad.

It would be great for the team if Rautins turns out to be rotational quality player, but what may be even more enjoyable is going back and looking at the SL posts which crucified poor Andy.

I'll have to see what I wrote back then, just to make sure that I was not one of the guys crucifying him, but I generally don't make snap judgments (A great NPR show, by the way- you should try to hear it http://snapjudgment.org/), and hope that I was not as judgmental as some of you were.

I was not happy with Rautins in SL, but like Douglas the year before, you have to be patient.

Some of you might have also read that Lance Stevenson, besides his mental problems, is also having trouble playing D according to the Pacers, and I'm not sure that they are as excited about him as they were following his SL performance.

So it goes.

Rautins is definitely intriguing -- the game against Minny was a small sample but it looks like the dude can definitely play some point. Someone mentioned on another thread that he reminded him of Kirk Hinrich..Very interesting comparison, that very well could be.

BRIGGS wrote:If he can truly play PG--then at 6-4 he would have significant size advantage over many players. That being said throw him out there against Rondo on Wed if you want to know what is up. Playing 6 minutes in the 4th Q means very little right now. Im always for letting the best man play. If rautins is playing better than Douglas or Felton--then let him start. The best 5 should play contract or experienced be da*ed. Felton has been a letdown so far--maybe not be anointing the position will help him step up.

Maybe that is what MDA was trying to do by letting Rautins play with the starters- send a little message to Felton, who would have to notice if Rautins was doing well with the starting squad.

Positives for Rautins:

- b-ball IQ
- court vision
- shooting
- length for point position
- passing
- solid defender

Negatives for Rautins:

- confidence
- breaking down people off the dribble (getting into the paint)
- experience
- durability (remains to be seen)

knicks1248 wrote:Dude did not look anything remotely close to how he did in paris against the mini...wtf was up with that god awful Shot with 8 secs to play..you would have thought it was .8 secs left.. funny how small negatives can out weigh big positives

only in your eyes. Dude did some OK stuff out there on the court for me, especially for a 3 PG off the bench.

knicks1248 wrote:

martin wrote:

knicks1248 wrote:Dude did not look anything remotely close to how he did in paris against the mini...wtf was up with that god awful Shot with 8 secs to play..you would have thought it was .8 secs left.. funny how small negatives can out weigh big positives

only in your eyes. Dude did some OK stuff out there on the court for me, especially for a 3 PG off the bench.

Like what...maybe stats do lie

Drove and made a pretty dish to Turiaf, which Turiaf fumbled cause he didn't expect the pass.

Also played pesky defense on Ray Allen.

Yeah he made a blunder with that 3-pt chuck with 8 seconds left, but maybe that was the play D'Antoni drew up, and Rautins (being the rookie) kept to the play instead of realizing that Boston defended it well and they had to improvise something new. Or maybe he thought he felt contact early, and hoisted up a shot thinking he'd get 3 FT's.

Who knows? But it was his first game as an NBA player at MSG...and that's a textbook rookie mistake. He'll learn from it.